Interest

Synthpop's YMO to Hold 1st L.A. Concert in 32 Years

On Sunday, June 26, the synthpop band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) and the reunited acid jazz band Cibo Matto will perform in the "Big in Japan" concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Southern California. The local radio station KCRW 89.9 FM announced the concert as part of World Festival, its annual summer-long musical festival in partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. The festival will announce other guests in the near future.

YMO first debuted in 1978 and helped pioneered the synthpop genre in Japan. Composed of three principle members Haruomi Hosono (bass), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums and vocals) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboard), they created seven studio albums and became the first technopop group to top Oricon's weekly record sales charts in Japan. A cover version of the song "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" from YMO's Naughty Boys album recently became the ending to the 2009 Shaft anime Maria Holic. Under the name HASYMO, the three members recorded the theme song "Rescue" for the Appleseed movie sequel Ex Machina.

Individually, the members of the group have contributed to other anime projects. Hosono composed Night on the Galactic Railroad, while Takahashi composed the song "Families" for Nadia - Secret of Blue Water. Most notably, Sakamoto composed the soundtracks to The Wings of Honneamise, the first Appleseed movie, and Le Chevalier D'Eon. He is also famously known for composing "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" which has been remixed and sampled by Watergate (known as "Heart of Asia") and most recently by Hikaru Utada on her second American album This is the One. Sakamoto won an Oscar for his work on The Last Emperor film.

Cibo Matto is New York City-based band composed started by two Japanese women, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori. Their form of acid jazz and trip hop has been moderately successful in the United States with musical credits in various American movies and Xbox game Jet Set Radio Future.

Travel back in time (and maybe have your gender swapped) to seven different periods of Japanese history, all from the comfort of your couch.― The history of Japanese civilization is expansive, predating the Common Era by 10,000 years (the Jomon period). There's much more ground to cover compared to what kids get in U.S. history classes in high school, which rarely cover anything before the Boston T...

Junji Ito's death-stench horror gets the deluxe treatment with a new hardcover omnibus, but the subject matter might not work for everyone.― Junji Ito is inarguably one of the masters of horror manga, utilizing both horror (physical revulsion) and terror (psychological reaction) to create gut-churning tales of the world gone mad. To a degree, he carries this out in his two-volume series Gyo from 200...

Voice actor/director/professional Dungeons & Dragons player Liam O'Brien returns to the podcast after a 5-year hiatus to discuss his roles in Fate/Zero and Sailor Moon, along with the landscape for anime voice acting now and what it's like to be Gollum.― ANNCast Episode 234: Podcastoes O'Brien Get the Flash Player to see this player. Voice actor/director/professional Dungeons & Dragons player Liam ...

If you went to an anime convention this summer or have used the internet lately, you may notice anime fans seem to have fallen in love with Steven Universe. Why? Because the show loves them right back.― If you've been to an anime convention in the past year, you've probably seen colorful, gem-studded cosplay like this filling the hallways. Photo credit links: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom...

If you've got questions for the director of the high-flying fantasy series The Pilot's Love Song, we've potentially got answers for you!― We've been given the opportunity to interview The Pilot's Love Song director Toshimasa Suzuki, and we need your help! NISA, who will be releasing the fantasy action drama The Pilot's Love Song on bluray September 22nd, asked for fan questions for Mr. Suzuki, whos...

Bee-Train's 2001 girls-with-guns classic returns on Blu-Ray, and holds up surprisingly well, despite some mediocre animation.― Not all older series deserve the Blu-Ray treatment. For some it is because the show just isn't as iconic as people might like to think, while for others it's because the quality was never BD worthy in the first place. Noir, fortunately, does hold up well enough that its tran...

Egypt Arc is JoJo in peak condition, as memorable and engaging an adventure as you could hope for. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is back.― When we last left our heroes, they'd just arrived on the shores of Egypt, escaping the literal jaws of defeat in order to finally save Jotaro's mother. The journey there had been a lengthy and sometimes inconsistent one, with their various adventures indeed being plen...

The creator of the hit manga, recently adapted into a popular anime series, talks about her inspirations, how she got her start, and what it's like to watch your manga become a TV show.― As you might guess from the story, the main character of the story is a high school roughneck named Ryu Yamada. Yamada meets cute, quiet, and studious Urara Shiraishi, who is his complete opposite in almost every wa...